Mr. Moto Is So Sorry

Mr. Moto Is So Sorry was originally published in serial form in the Saturday Evening Post from July 2 to August 13, 1938, and was first published in book form in 1938. It is the fourth of six Mr. Moto novels and can also be found in the omnibus Mr. Moto's Three Aces published in 1939. The Moto novels are spy fiction and adventure novels set in the Orient, which in the 1930s was considered mysterious and exotic. Mr. Moto is a spy for the Imperial Japanese government and often deals with people who are accidentally involved in his work. Marquand traveled to China to gather information and atmosphere for his Moto novels. Millicent Bell, Marquand’s biographer, states: “In Mr. Moto Is So Sorry, Marquand went back once more to his memories of 1934, and his hero’s journey duplicates Marquand’s own arrival in China, although there is considerably more melodramatic incident along the fictional journey.” Plot Calvin Gates, an American, is traveling through Japan to mainland Asia. He boards a train which will eventually take him to Mongolia to join a scientific expedition. On the train is Sylvia Dillaway, a sketch artist, also on her way to the Gilbreth Expedition. Accompanying her is Boris, her Russian guide. When Mr. Moto appears, Boris becomes agitated and gives Dillaway a cigarette case made of silver inlaid with gunmetal, bearing a scenic design.